Ingredients: half of head of cabbage, oil, two tablespoons granulated sugar, salt, black pepper, pasta flakes, bacon, caraway, powdered sugar for topping
Prep Time: one hour for the cabbage to cook, 15 minutes to get the noodles ready

Start by shredding the cabbage using a grater. The squeeze out as much liquid as you can, this will keep oil splatter down.

Heat up about quarter cup of oil in a pot and add two tablespoons of sugar. Wait for the sugar to start turning to brown caramel, this will take about 2 minutes.

Then carefully add the cabbage. Doing it like this by hand is probably not the smartest, since the oil will splatter. Be careful not to burn yourself! The cabbage will quickly absorb the oil, and the liquid caramel will also turn into rock chunks. No worry, it will dissolve when you add water. Add just enough water to cover the cabbage, pinch of caraway seeds if you like them (and also black pepper), lower the heat, cover, and let simmer for about an hour, stirring frequently.

When the cabbage starts getting tender, start preparing the noodles. Cook the flakes in a pot of salted water for 10 to 15 minutes. Strain the noodles and mix into the cabbage, which by now should be dry and have all the water evaporated out.

Top the noodles either with bacon bits, or if you like them sweet, with powdered sugar. Enjoy!

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Ingredients: 4 potatoes, 2/3 cups of flour, 1 cup milk, small onion, bacon bits
Prep Time: 30 minutes

Peel and cube several potatoes (zemiaky). While they are cooking, chop one small onion (cibuľa) and few strips of bacon (slanina).

Once the potatoes get soft, strain most of the liquid out into a cup. Add flour and mash everything together. Then add the liquid back. Also add salt to taste.

If the porridge is too thick, add another cup of water or milk. You could also use less flour but then you end up with less porridge…

Bring the porridge (kaša) back to boil while stirring so the potatoes don’t burn your pan. At the same time, fry the onion on small heat. I started by first frying the bacon on small heat to render the fat. After about 5 minutes, I added the onion and also a bit of butter. Cook the porridge until skin forms on top and the porridge starts “puffing” all over the place. Fry the onions until they are crunchy.

Top with the onions and bacon and serve with a glass of milk or kefir. There you have it, Slovakia’s second national dish!

Fučka is one of those foods that surely originated during the times when the pantries were less plentiful than today. It’s a super rich and filling dish (sýte jedlo). You won’t be hungry again for half a day after one bowl like this. If you want to put your family on a little financial diet, try serving this porridge few times a week. You could save some real money!

This porridge doesn’t have to be topped with bacon, or even onions. There are other popular toppings, including bryndza or fried cabbage. Feel free to experiment with whatever you like. And if you don’t know what the number one national dish of Slovakia is, it’s bryndzové halušky. Another popular traditional dishes are bryndza pierogi, and strapačky.

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Last weekend the EU embassies here in Washington, D.C. held an open house. Each embassy had some free goodies symbolizing that respective country. Germans had bratwurst, Belgians beer and chocolate, Poles kielbasa. The Slovak embassy cooked up strapačky and served them with cold Slovak Golden Pheasant (zlatý bažant) beer. If you attended this even, and want to try making this simple, yet very traditional dish at home, well you are in luck. Here is (my) recipe for strapačky.

About the name. My family has never used the word strapačky. We call all potato dumplings halušky. Even according to the Slovak Wikipedia, these two words are synonyms. My grandma would call this halušky s kapustou or kapustové halušky. But, strapačky seems to be a really common term – that’s what the embassy called this dish. It’s actually a pretty fitting term. It is derived from the word strapatý, which means shaggy, as when your hair is uncombed. Pretty good resemblance, I think.

The first (and very important!) step is to rinse the sauerkraut (kyslá kapusta). Rinse it well, get your hand in there and toss it around. Otherwise, the result will be too sour. Then heat up oil, and fry the kraut for few minutes. Make sure you have a lid for the pan you are using. Also add some caraway seeds (rasca). Then give it little bit water. Not too much, just enough to have a small layer on all the way across the pan.

Reduce the heat, cover, and let steam for at least an hour. Periodically open the lid, stir the cabbage, and also add more water as needed. You want to steam the cabbage, not fry it. Usually, little bit of sugar is added to the cabbage. I like to do this at the end, I figured it’s better to sweeten it only once the taste is close to being done. I also don’t like the cabbage particularly sweet, so I gave it just a small handful. It will take at least an hour for the cabbage to get soft.

Don’t forget to make halušky while you wait for the cabbage!

And that’s it. Just mix the kapusta in and serve. I also strongly believe that any dish is better with bacon, so I also like to add bits of fried bacon into my kapustové halušky.

Bryndzové Halušky

Since I cooked up halušky, I could not resist making the other variant, the one that is considered the national dish of Slovakia, bryndzové halušky. (I have previously posted this recipe, but the old photos are not of good quality and the high resolution images are missing. But if you are interested in seeing the original recipe and the many comments, click here)

Integral part of this dish are bacon bits called škvarky. To make them right, you need REALLY thick piece of bacon, or even better, a single cut of pork belly. You can then follow Rado’s recipe. The reason it’s so hard to replicate the taste with the American bacon, is that Slovak škvarky start off as cubes, so they end up crunchy only on the outside. But, in keeping up with the traditions as much as possible, cut up the bacon (slanina) into squares about half inch wide. Put them in a frying pan containing just enough water (voda) to cover their bottoms. Bring the water to boil. Then, lower the heat to minimum, and let cook for at least an hour, stirring frequently. Make sure to keep stirring, so that you don’t fry the bacon. Instead, you want to slowly let the fat melt away.

You will also need bryndza, the special Slovak sheep milk cheese. Where can I buy bryndza in the United States, you may ask. Well, I have good news! Some folks from the Washington, D.C. Slovak Meetup group tipped me off to the Israeli-style Feta sold in Trader Joes. This kind, by the Pasture of Eden, is darn close to bryndza! It’s not cheap (7 bucks for this block), but definitely worth the price. Mix it in (make sure the dumplings are still warm so the cheese softens) and top with the bacon bits. Finally, add few spoonfuls of the bacon grease. This is important; don’t skip this last step. You can always go for a jog later to burn off all that fat.

To really experience the traditional Slovak taste, you must have this dish with a glass of žinčica, the whey that drips off during the making of bryndza. Žinčica is similar in taste to kefir, but has a stronger flavor. Very often, Slovak restaurants will instead offer you zákysanka, which I believe is identical to kefir made of regular cow milk.

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Pirohy (pierogi) are not as common in Slovakia as in, let’s say Poland. There they are stuffed with all kinds of fillings. There are pierogi filled with meat, mashed potatoes, curd cheese, onions, or even sweet jams. But one kind you will surely find on your travels in Slovakia are bryndzové pirohy, pierogi filled with the special Slovak sheep cheese, bryndza. This cheese is also used to make the Slovak national dish, bryndzové halušky.

My family did not use to make pirohy. But lucky for me, a lady named Helka helps out in my dad’s restaurant and she makes amazing pirohy. So I had her show me how they are made. Below is the recipe for the authentic Slovak pierogi. All the cooking was done by eye, so the above ingredients are only my best estimates.

Start by cooking few potatoes (zemiaky). Cook them until they are quite soft and mash them by hand. Add about a cup of flour (múka), one egg (vajce) and about a tablespoon of salt (soľ). Mix everything together by hand. Then add more flour until you get a fairly stiff mixture. Also place a large pot full of salted water onto the stove.

Form the dough into a loaf and place it onto a dusted board. Dust top with flour to prevent the pin from sticking. Roll out to an about 3 millimeters thick pancake.

Then take a drinking glass and cut out circles. Do this by pushing down with the glass and twisting your wrist left and right few times. The dough will come out with the glass. Top each circle with a teaspoon worth of bryndza. If you don’t have bryndza, you can imitate it by mixing feta with sour cream.

Fold the circle over and pinch the seal closed with the tip of your fingers. Then, to make the pirohy look prettier, grab the seal between your fingers and twist about 60 degrees. Do this at few spots.

Place pierogi into the pot of boiling water. I found it really neat that Helka uses the same technique for transporting dumplings as my grandma – by placing them onto the back side of her arm. Right after placing them in water, scoop them up with a wooden spoon to keep them from sticking to the bottom. Pierogi are ready when they float to the top. Scoop them out using a large strainer.

Bryndzové pirohy are topped with škvarky, fried bacon bits. Prepare these by cutting good thick smoked bacon into pieces about inch long and frying them until the white fat part dissolves away. Top pierogi with few spoonfuls of grease and then with the bacon bits. Finally top with sour cream (kyslá smotana).

And there you have them, delicious Slovak homemade bryndzové pirohy. Serve with a glass of žinčica, sour sheep milk which is bit similar to kefir.

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I grew up eating poppy seed noodles (rezance s makom). These are quite similar to šúlance s makom (poppy seed dough rolls, from šúlať, to roll). Those are frequently eaten on Christmas. See, in Slovak heritage, poppies are a sign of wealth. It’s customary to wish someone to have peňazí ako maku, money like poppies. This is why we eat so many dishes topped with poppy seeds.

Start by cooking noodles (rezance). Home-made noodles work the best, but if you don’t feel like all the trouble, just grab some wide, fettuccine-like pasta. Bring slightly salted water to boil. Cook until done. Noodles (just like any pasta) will float to the top when cooked. But of course, you can just taste one or two. Strain them and rinse off with cold water.

Place noodles in a pot in which you melted some butter (maslo). Stir in a mixture of ground poppy seeds (mak) and sugar (cukor). That’s it. Very easy and very tasty. Enjoy!

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